The present embodiments relate to medical information systems. In particular, the presentation of information assists users in understanding medical terms.
Each person has different models of the world based on their education, expertise and/or life experience. For example, a doctor has a greater medical vocabulary than a layman patient. The doctor may have more nuanced expressions, such as an Eskimo may have many words for types of ice while someone from an equatorial region may use merely “ice.” Different people have different amounts of granularity in their model of the medical world.
People and organizations need to communicate despite these different levels or models of understanding and need. For example, a patient that is to have a total knee replacement receives a communication from a physician, such as a discharge order or a message in a patient portal (e.g., on-line or Internet-based messaging). The patient may not understand the word “edema” used by the physician. This term is not in the patient's model of the world. The patient may use “swelling,” while a therapist may use “inflammation.” A given message may contain whole sentences or multiple words leading to misunderstanding.